Religiosity Decline in Europe: Age, Generation, and the Mediating Role of Shifting Human Values

Despite the fact that age is associated with higher religiosity, the aging European population has experienced a noticeable religiosity decline over recent decades. This study aimed to explain this paradox and to link it to an intergenerational shift in the pattern of values (as conceptualized by Sh...

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Subtitles:"Tribal Healing, Suicide, Ethical Issues, Cancer and Measuring Religiosity and Spirituality"
Authors: Koscielniak, Maciej (Author) ; Bojanowska, Agnieszka (Author) ; Gasiorowska, Agata (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. 2024
In: Journal of religion and health
Year: 2024, Volume: 63, Issue: 2, Pages: 1091-1116
Further subjects:B Human Values
B Generations
B Religiosity
B Age
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Summary:Despite the fact that age is associated with higher religiosity, the aging European population has experienced a noticeable religiosity decline over recent decades. This study aimed to explain this paradox and to link it to an intergenerational shift in the pattern of values (as conceptualized by Shalom Schwartz). We conducted extended mediation analyses on the relationships between generational affiliation and the level of personal religiosity via human values in two studies (European Social Survey round 7, N = 29,775; and European Social Survey rounds 1-9, N = 224,314). Our results confirm a pronounced trend of religiosity decline and explain this process by changes in personal values. In particular, Europe's generational increase in openness to change values explains religiosity decline above and beyond the effect of people’s developmental age. We conclude that the perspective of human values provides a significant rationale for further research on religiosity, in relation to both past and future generations of Europeans.
ISSN:1573-6571
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and health
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10943-022-01670-x